Fishing is not only a popular pastime but also a commercial industry, as well as a sport. All those that fish generally use a form of bait to lure a fish to some sort of hook. Many fishermen, especially those who do so recreationally, attach various kinds of baits to hooks which are in turn attached to a fishing line that is coupled to a fishing rod. Catching a fish with a fishing lure is essentially a two-step process: first one must attract the fish with a lure by using a good bait, and then one must actually snare the fish on a hook while the fish is trying to eat the bait. There are many companies who market different fishing lures to attract fish, leaving fishermen with the dilemma of how to attach a bait to a hook in such a way that the bait will stay on the hook during casting, while in the water, and while a fish is eating it. Some baits, both live and artificial, are fragile, thus contributing to the difficulty of securely attaching the bait to a hook.
There have been various attempts to use holders of some kind to secure bait to a hook. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,961,280 issued to Hudson discloses a transparent member for encasing the hook and the bait and a sealing means for sealing the bait and hook in the transparent member. The Hudson patent presents several problems, however. First, the sealing member prevents fish from being able to nibble on any portion of the bait, since it is entirely encased in the transparent member. Additionally, the transparent member is fixed in size and therefore unable to retain bait by means of frictional engagement. U.S. Pat. No. 4,788,788 issued to Brockett discloses a catfish bait holder that utilizes a hollow cylinder and a cylindrical sponge to keep bait inside. The Brockett cylinder is designed for use with a viscous bait, not live or standard artificial baits. Like the Hudson patent, the Brockett cylinder is fixed in size and is therefore unable to expand to hold both larger baits as well as smaller baits.
A need therefore existed for an expandable bait sleeve capable of expanding while at the same time securely retaining baits of various sizes so that the expandable bait sleeve can be coupled to a hook in order to improve a fisherman's chances of catching a fish by minimizing the chance that a fish will be able to separate the bait from the hook without being caught on the hook.